


& the still-to-come

by starknjarvis



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Jason healing, Tattoos, batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 14:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknjarvis/pseuds/starknjarvis
Summary: Jason's life after death can be told through his tattoos.





	& the still-to-come

The first tattoo Jason gets is an impulse.

Talia had suggested Jason explore the world a bit before returning to Gotham to exact his revenge. She’s been helping train him for the last year, but the League has its blindspots. To be Batman’s equal—superior—he needs more than just what the disciplined assassins can offer.

Besides, the League’s formal teaching style would never match Jason’s personality. He wasn’t Bruce—he couldn’t erase his emotions in a fight. He needed those feelings, that anger and pain, to fuel him.

He’s in London to meet a man who was kicked out of the UK Special Forces for being too aggressive. The man has been working as an assassin for the last decade. Though he’s never been invited into the League, they keep an eye on his work and ally with him where needed. Talia gave Jason the contact, and the man agreed to train Jason for a price.

Another gruff, angry man trying to tell Jason what to do. Great.

It’s only his determination to confront Batman, to avenge _himself_ if Batman is never going to, that makes Jason even consider it. He’s ready to be done with training. He’s ready to stand on his own.

Jason is there a day early to scope out the city, familiarize himself with the streets so that if the assassin turns against him, he’ll know where to run. He may be ready to learn from this guy, but he doesn’t trust him. He’s sure the guy doesn’t expect him to.

In their line of work, trust is a weakness.

Jason turns down a narrow alley, and pulls up short. His eyes latch onto the familiar symbol, the curved lines and sharp points he could draw in his sleep. His heartbeat ratchets up for a moment—rage, disappointment, betrayal, hope—before his mind catches up with his eyes.

It’s a tattoo shop.

The front window is plastered with art, and the theme of one corner seems to be Justice League emblems. They’re all sticker-crisp outlines of logos and weapons: Flash’s lightning bolt, Superman’s Kryptonian letter, Wonder Woman’s rope, and there, front and center, is Batman’s symbol.

Jason has lived under that symbol for nearly as long as he can remember. The whispers in Crime Alley about a monster bat-man. The small, bright figure of Robin making Jason look to the rooftops when the chaos of the street grew too loud. Then in the Cave, on Bruce’s chest, on their car and computer and weapons.

Of course it isn’t limited to the city limits of Gotham. Batman spends time with the Justice League, who help all of Earth—all of the multiverse. Still, seeing it here, across the ocean, is a jolt of emotion he can’t untangle.

He laughs, the sound raw in his throat. Then he’s laughing at himself for laughing. God, he’s fucked up, isn’t he? How is he going to handle going back to Gotham? He can’t even face Bruce with the entire Atlantic between them.

“Are you coming in, or what?” calls the receptionist beyond the open door, raising a pierced eyebrow at him.

Jason lets his laughter fade, shaking his head. Then, he hesitates. “Sure,” he says, and strolls into the shop.

The shop smells of antiseptic, and the drill of needles from the back is high and whining. It’s a vaguely familiar sound—there were a few tattoos shops near his mom’s apartment—and it’s grating on his raw nerves.

He leans into the discomfort. What can scare him? What can’t he do?

The receptionist looks him over, eyebrows still lifted, and waves him to a binder in the waiting area. The inside is full of flash art, a hundred simple designs the artists in the shop can churn out on cue. He flips through it, landing on a page at random and examining the eight options there.

A stylized demonic face catches his eye. Unlike some of the other art plastered around the shop, it doesn’t involve an exaggerated woman’s body or a bird's outline. It’s simple, bright red, and the demon’s smirk seems to be challenging him.

“You getting something, mate?” the receptionist asks.

“Yeah,” he says, holding up the binder and showing her the demon. “Why not?”

Bruce would say he’s being reckless, making a permanent decisions without thinking about it. Talia would say he’s asking for an identifying mark when he’s supposed to stay anonymous. Alfred would cringe at the idea of Jason getting something so gauche in his home country. So many opinions about Jason’s life, Jason’s body.

The tattoo artist is stunned that this is Jason’s first ink. As the needles drill into his stomach, the artist says, “Most virgins are more nervous, especially in this spot. You’re sitting like a rock.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had worse,” Jason says.

#

Jason’s second tattoo is not much more thought out.

Six months back in Gotham, and Jason has watched his entire criminal empire rise and fall with nothing to show for it but more blood on his hands than ever— including the blood of a baby bird.

He failed. He lost. He can’t kill Batman. He doesn’t think too hard about why not.

He could go anywhere in the world. The steel ties that used to bind him to Gotham turned out to be rusted, fragile and dangerous. Bruce doesn’t want him here, not after what he’s done. His parents are dead. He lost a lot of money in trying to maintain his hold on the drug trade, but he has enough to get out of town—out of the country, even.

But he’s still here.

As he wanders the city, considering his neck steps, he’s wearing a baseball cap with a hoodie pulled over it for extra measure. He nearly bought a Superman cap out of spite, but the bright, hopeful colors had been too much, so he’d just gotten a generic gray cap with GOTHAM written in block letters. It’s not hard to disappear into the crowd here, especially since he dyed his hair to full black again. Maybe in a more normal city, the sheer breadth of his shoulders would draw some attention, but this is Gotham.

If you don’t have scales, you’re not worth a second look.

Gotham has nothing to tie him here anymore, but he’s still here. Crime Alley is in his bones. The people can change. The buildings can get torn down and rebuilt. But this is where he was born. There’s sewer water in his blood.

As he makes his way back toward his nearest safehouse, he passes a tattoo shop, and the subject of his thoughts is staring back at him. In addition to the campy flash pasted on the window, someone has drawn a simple outline of Crime Alley’s distinctive street plan. There’s the grid to the north, where it still overlaps with the rest of the city. There’s Grand Street, cutting its way across the map like a scar. The artist has even included the neighborhood’s titual alleys, like capillaries off the main streets.

He follows an impulse and goes into the shop. He has to wait a half-hour, slumped in one of the waiting room chairs and scanning the Gotham citizens who walk past outside, but then he’s back on a leather chair with the buzz of needles in the air.

He gets the streets of Crime Alley carved into his calf. They shave his leg to do it, and the patch of bare skin looks vulnerable before the needles even make contact.

This city will never love him back—nothing ever will—but that doesn’t stop him from loving it. And maybe that’s what matters.

#

After that, they start building up. He starts planning for them, accumulating them across his skin like a scrapbook.

When he puts more effort into the concepts than walking past them on the street, they take time to organize. Gotham has a resurging art scene, especially downtown, and there are many artists to choose from. Jason wanders the city at night, dropping by and flipping through concept books until he has a mental map of every artist in the city.

More than one receptionist tells him to use Instagram to save time, but he stays away from social media. It boomed while he was dead and abroad, and he knows that any account he made would get tagged by the bats in hours. He’s been laying low, avoiding getting tangled in messes like the ones he’d created when he’d first come back to Gotham, but he knows Bruce and his new technologically-minded sidekick have an eye on his activities.

Besides, what would he post? His empty safehouses? Different angles of his motorcycle? Rows of ammunition?

The next tattoo he gets, he nearly backs out of. He’s drawn a rough—very rough—sketch, but even that feels too real. His first two tattoos weren’t necessarily meaningless, but they don’t hold the baggage this one does.

Still, he picked the idea for a reason. He’s lost his life once. Every day is a second chance. He’s living on borrowed time, and he can’t forget what was done to him.

The detailed shading and texture on the black-and-gray tattoo take nearly four hours, but when it’s done, it looks as though the stone was carved directly into his back.

There’s no name on the headstone—even he’s not reckless enough to stamp his secret identity onto his skin—but the birth date and death date are real. The artist insisted on adding a few blades of grass at the base to give it a sense of place, and Jason is glad he did. The tattoo looks natural, as much a piece of him now as his death as always been.

Then, laughing at himself, he goes to another shop to get a boat crashing against a wave just two weeks later.

“This is a cool idea,” the artist says, a young woman with bright blue hair cropped close to her skull. “Boats are fun to tattoo—nice line and detail work.”

“It’s a reference to one of my favorite books. I realized I’ve been acting a bit more like than main character than I had hoped,” Jason drawls, keeping his body still as the needles drive into his forearm. He puts on a narrator’s dramatic voice, and quotes, “ _And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past._ ”

“ _The Great Gatsby_?” she laughs. “A little basic, isn’t it?”

“It’s a classic for a reason. Be glad I went for the boat. I almost got the green lantern, but that’s been co-opted these days. Fucking superheroes.” Jason leans back against the slick leather of the tattoo chair. He stares at the ceiling overhead, imagining the stars beyond. “Hey, do you think F. Scott Fitzgerald was in the corps?”

She snorts. “Yeah, no.”

#

Jason seems to be the person most surprised that he’s ended back in Batman’s circle.

Jason says no, at first, when Bruce hands him a bat-themed communicator and tells him to keep it on him. He’s long-since abandoned his attempts to become a drug lord in Gotham, but he’s not a Robin anymore. He may not kill people quite as often as before, but he’s still not convinced it’s a bad idea.

He finds the communicator tucked in his pocket, despite his refusal, and he drops it into the bay.

When a second one appears a few weeks later, Jason ignores it. Hell, if the bats want to be able to call him to come save their ass, at least he’ll be able to laugh at them for it.

The first time he officially answers a distress call, he expects it to be a big deal. It _is_ a big deal. He almost ignored the message in a fit of stubborness. By the time he shows up, Dick Grayson has moved from ‘at risk’ to ‘nearly a bloody pulp,’ but he still grins when Jason shoots the henchmen in the knees and unties him.

“Just like old times,” Dick beams, as though Jason had often swooped in to shoot his captors in their early years. He doesn’t seem surprised—just relieved.

“Shut up,” Jason grumbles, slinging Dick’s arm over his shoulder to help lug him out of the warehouse. The other backup should be coming soon, but Dick needs medical attention sooner rather than later. “You’re dripping blood on me.”

“Sorry, Jay,” Dick says, insincere and light.

Jason frowns as he shuffles them toward the door. “They drug you with something?”

“No?”

Jason checks. Dick’s eyes are bright and alert beneath the mask, despite the pain. “Hm. Are you always this cheerful after you’ve been whaled on for an hour?”

“It’s just good to have you back, man.” Dick lapses into silence then, which is somehow more worrying.

After Jason drops Dick into the Batmobile that meets them halfway across the city to race him to the Cave for Alfred’s steady medical care, he stares after the retreating tail lights for a long moment.

#

After that, he starts working with the team more and more. Oracle doesn’t schedule him in the weekly patrol plans (which, considering how many sidekicks Batman has acquired, is a nearly incomprehensible grid more complicated than most internal Wayne Enterprises documents.) Jason watches over Crime Alley, but he’s not on the hook for all of Gotham. He’s never been a team player, and certainly isn’t now.

But when they need him, he’s there.

Every time, there’s a strange ball of emotion in his chest. Anger, cynicism, hope, fear, impatience, triumph. It was a heady, confusing mess that he tries not to think about.

It takes four months before he calls them for help.

It’s one thing to be their tool, someone they can call if they need help. There’s some distance there, and power. He doesn’t need them—they need him. He clawed his way back from the grave, dabbled in supervillany, was replaced by a slew of new Robins, but they still rely on him.

It’s another thing to admit that, sometimes, he’s the one in trouble.

He stumbles onto The Penguin’s latest lair, where he’s been peddling the new drug killing dumb, reckless kids in Crime Alley. Jason does his due diligence, but he’s angry. The kids in his neighborhood are making mistakes, but they’re vulnerable. If someone offers them an escape from their circumstances, especially in the form of a drug they’re promising has no side-effects, some kids are going to take that. Jason’s been slowly building a community in Crime Alley, and when one of the kids in his apartment building ended up in the hospital, Jason decides to end this sooner rather than later.

The lucrative drug has given The Penguin the ability to hire a higher caliber of thug than usual, though, and one of them manages to get in a lucky shot and knock him out.

He wakes up bleeding and tied to a chair in a room deep in the Gotham sewers that is slowly filling with water. It’s cold and slimy as it laps against his knees. He wonders how the water is coming into the room, and hopes that the opening is too small for Killer Croc to get through. Ominously rising water is bad enough without leaving him tied up in front of a cannibal with a grudge.

Jason’s helmet has shorted out sometime while he’d been unconscious, but there’s a secondary emergency button in his sleeve. He can’t twist free of the ropes, but he manages to dislocate his thumb and press the bat-shaped beacon.

By now, the water is up to his stomach, and his head and hand are throbbing with every beat of his heart. That beat is faster than he’d like to admit. This isn’t as violent as his first death, but he’s almost surprised to realize how very much he wants to live. For a long time, he had been too focused on his revenge to worry about his life. Every breath was one he shouldn’t be taking, and he’d seen it all as extra time.

But he wants this life, as screwed up as it’s been.

Will someone come from him? Will they believe his distress call? Will the signal even escape the sewers?

The first time he died, he waited until the last breath for Bruce to save him. By now, he should know better than to rely on someone else.

His dislocated thumb throbs, and blood swirls into the water as he rubs his wrists against the ropes, trying to work his way free.

There’s a clang as the door to the room is kicked open, and the water rushes from the room in a wave. He hears a quiet noise of surprise, and then there’s a flash of red as a cape billows after the figure leaping up toward the ceiling beyond the threshold.

Red Robin races into the room before the water is fully cleared, boots splashing on the concrete.

“Red Hood,” he says urgently.

Jason lolls his head. “Double R,” he says.

“I think I got everyone standing guard, but I think it’s better to get you out now in case I missed anyone,” Tim says.

“You, missing someone?”

“I was in a hurry,” Tim says. He hisses through his teeth when he sees Jason’s wrist, but uses a handheld laser to slice the ropes quickly. “We got your distress call, but everyone else was on the docks. There’s an…alien thing. Sorry it took so long to get here.” He’s looking over Jason with worry stark in his eyes, an unusual expression for the boy Jason hated for so long. “We need to get you to the Cave.”

“I’m fine,” Jason rasps, shaking out his hands. Drops of blood fall to the wet floor, swirling in the current.

“You’re bleeding!” Instead of pointing to his wrists, which are the only obvious injury—he thinks his head is bleeding too, but that’s hidden behind the helmet—Tim points at his waist.

Jason looks down, frowing. His uniform is torn, revealing a bright red patch of skin below. He blinks. His torso hurts from the beating, but he hadn’t realized…

Then, he laughs and reaches down, tearing the shirt open slightly more. The fabric resists under his weakened hands, but even the reinforced fabric can’t hold out forever. In the new bare patch, the skin is revealed as a patch of a larger tattoo, a demon’s face colored in a deep red.

“It’s an Oni mask,” Jason says. “Nothing to get your tights in a twist about.”

“You have a tattoo?”

“More than one, kiddo,” Jason says. He stands up, and stumbles as his legs protest. He’s soaked up to his chest, the water cold and slimy. His body is chilled and slow.

“I bet Batman loves that,” Tim says, voice somewhere between bitterness and awe. He drags Jason over to lean against his shoulders as they make their way out of the sewers. Jason doesn’t protest—let the kid feel useful.

“He doesn’t know.”

“You sure about that?” Tim laughs. “I always thought about getting a Robin one, back in the day. I’m glad I didn’t. The current Robin”—that would be Damian, the brat—“would get a laugh out of that now. Besides, it wouldn’t have been good for keeping the secret identity if someone caught me shirtless.”

“Ha, no worries on that front. Half the tattoo designs in this city are bat or robin-themed.”

“Do you have one?”

Jason laughs so hard that his wounded head flares with pain.

Then he thinks about it.

And thinks about it.

And a month later, he gets an abandoned nest tattooed on his hipbone.

#

In the end, it takes Alfred to convince him.

Jason has been working with the bats for more than a year now. They call on him for help, and after his near-drowning, he’s been calling them as well. He knows he can rely on them in the field.

Still, he’s separate. He’s around, but he’s not part of their family. That life was for the old Jason, the kid who saw the whole future ahead of him. That kid is dead, and all any of them have is Red Hood.

They don’t seem to notice the difference, somehow.

When Alfred brings up the idea of the Wayne family vacation, Jason wheezes with laughter. Instead of joining him, Alfred gives him a quelling stare. “Everyone needs the time off. Mr. Kent has already agreed to watch over Gotham. And it would mean the world to Master Bruce.”

So Jason goes.

And has _fun_.

They rent out an entire villa in the mountains of Colorado, a sprawling resort in the middle of a snow-covered landscape. There is a spa in the facility, easy access to the ski slopes, and a dozen restaurants of various cuisines. A butler even more formal than Alfred greets them at the door and leads them to their suites, and every need is catered to.

Jason hasn’t been pampered in a long time.

The best part, though, is learning about his ‘siblings.’ He’s beaten Tim into a pulp, he's brawled on the streets with Damian, he’s saved Duke’s ass from a fire, but he doesn’t know anyone but Dick. It turns out that the new kids are wild.

Cass and Stephanie race him down the mountain, Jason and Stephanie on snowboards, Cass on slender skis. Cass, new to the experience, nonetheless tips fearlessly down the black diamond run, flying through the air like a ballerina. Jason crashes into a snowdrift, and Stephanie laughs herself hoarse.

Dick convinces everyone but Bruce and Alfred to sneak up the mountain after dark and slide back down on intertubes. Stars coat the sky overhead, and the cold wind whistles past Jason’s ears, interrupted by the whoops and shouts of Robins past and present.

Why hasn’t he spent more time with Batman’s other wards? He’s been certain they wouldn’t want his company, and if they did, that he would not want theirs.

But they’re just kids. Cool kids. They’re all going through shit that only other people in their small group can understand, and Jason has gone through more shit than any of them.

For someone who refuses to look at the past, he’s been carrying it around, letting it hold him back from learning the only people in the world who might understand him. Maybe he is a Jay Gatsby after all.

When he gets back to Gotham, he goes back to the first artist he’d picked out deliberately. Sicne then, he’s found a regular shop, a place with an artist for every one of his moods, but he doesn’t have trouble finding the first artist again. The artist complains for a while about the scar Jason managed to get at the bottom corner of the gravestone tattoo, now several years old. When Jason has rolled his eyes and apologized enough, the artist fulfills his request—and adds another dash after his death date.

He died once. He’ll die again. But there’s life in those dashes.

#

Jason has become a regular both in the Cave and at the manor, though he spends most of his time above ground. He spars with Tim and Cass, cooks with Alfred and Duke, plays board games with Dick and Damian (which causes more injuries than the sparring), and even occasionally talks to Bruce. There’s baggage between him and Bruce that even his truce with the family can’t solve, but in the quiet moments, it seems as though they’re both trying.

It’s strange, seeing Bruce try. When Jason came back, Bruce seemed harder than he’d been when Jason had died. On the outside, as a fighter, he is. But his family has grown so much, and there’s a tenderness to him that just Dick and Jason hadn’t brought out.

Was it because he loves the new Robins more? On dark nights, on lonely rooftops, Jason harbors an ember of bitterness. Most of the time, he just agrees. The new kids are great. If he’d had to pick between himself and Cass, he knows who he’d choose.

He’s out with Cass tonight, strolling through Crime Alley. They’re in civvies, Cass in a loose sweater and Jason in a leather jacket. It’s astounding that the eerie, stitched mask of Black Bat hides such a soft face, but looks are deceiving in Gotham.

“This is your neighborhood,” she says, spinning in a circle to take in the cramped buildings looming over them, seeming to lean down over the street. Jason watches the crowd around them, making sure no one bumps into her. They’d just finished eating hot dogs by the bay—Cass eats like a teenage boy, which Stephanie told him was sexist to say out loud—and were enjoying one of the last nights of pleasant air before winter’s bruising arrival.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Where’s your shop?” When he hums, she points at his hand. His most recent tattoo, inked in place three months ago, was a quote from _War and Peace_ , the letters winding around each other like vines on the back of his hand. _Yes, death is an awakening._ Text doesn’t survive long on a part of the body as well-used as the hand, but—what did survive long?

“My usual is just up the street, actually,” he says. She’s watching his hand still, so he adds, “Want to go?”

The receptionist greets him by name, and he gives her a casual salute. “Back again?” she asks.

“Hey, Karrie. Just showing my sister the place.”

Karrie looks between him and Cass, but doesn’t comment. Cass, meanwhile, is smiling to herself as she scans the rows of flash art hanging on the walls. There’s a variety of art here—some classic flash, with eagles and skulls, and some small pieces the artists in residence haven’t found a home for yet. He peers at a new sketch from Miguel, one of his favorites, and hums.

Beside him, Cass seems entranced by one of the sketches. “See something you like?”

Silently, she points at a simple red rose. It’s more stylized than the usual flash roses, the deep red of the petals cut with micro-dots tracing its veins.

“Gorgeous,” he says. “You wanna get it?”

Cass shakes her head. She’s still staring at the flower, but a frown mars her thin lips. “Can’t.”

“You sure?”

She stares for another long moment, and then nods. He’s not sure if this is leftover from her early years, or something she picked up with Bruce, but the spark in her eyes when she’d spun in the streets was gone.

“Well,” Jason says, clapping his hands. “Snooze, you lose, I guess.” She blinks at him, and he shrugs. “I have a spot on my arm I’ve been wanting to fill.”

“You don’t have to… You like roses?”

“They’re pretty.”

She frowns. “Not a good reason.” She was still clearly unsettled, and her speech had faltered with it.

“It’s just skin, Cass,” he says softly. “Why not put something beautiful on it?”

At the end of the night, Cass peers through the shiny plastic wrap around his forearm at the bright red tattoo, and smiles.

#

It’s not unusual for Jason to get beat to hell. He’s stronger than he was when he was a kid scrapping in Crime Alley, coming home with black eyes more nights than not, but he’s also fighting bigger bad guys than desperate men in alleys. Jason had gone to stop what he’d thought was a new drug dealer in town, only to find Bane and a new batch of henchmen. Bane had been away from Gotham the last few years, and had been quiet coming back into the city.

That should have been the point Jason had called for help, but he hadn’t pressed the button until the fight had gone to hell. By the time Batman and Robin came swooping in to save him, Jason had been on the ground, holding onto consciousness like it was a rope over a crocodile-invested river. Boots had been colliding with his helmet and back for what felt like an hour, and even the Wayne Enterprises tech couldn’t block the blows.

Jason had tried to wave Bruce away and limp back to his safe house.

Jason’s gone through a lot of humiliating things in his life, but being bodily dragged into the Batmobile while Damian watched is now near the top of the list.

Damian had slipped into the shadows when they had gotten back to the Cave, so Jason is alone with Bruce. Jason spent many nights in his teenage years on this cold metal table under the bright spotlights of the Cave, but it’s been years since he’s allowed himself back under Bruce’s care. When he’s hurt, he goes straight to Alfred or Leslie or—more often—takes care of it himself.

Bruce drags the suture station from its usual place against the wall, the table rattling against the ground. Alfred keeps the needles, thread, and antiseptic on hand and in bulk supply. The butler himself is sleeping off a nasty cold. It had taken every Robin working together to convince him to take the night off, and even the prospect of being patched up by Bruce isn’t enough to make Jason want to wake him up. “Shirt and helmet off.”

“I have it handled,” Jason says.

“Like you handled Bane?” Bruce growls. It’s not the first time this line of conversation has come up in the last half hour. “That was reckless. You should never have started that fight on your own. You could have died.”

“Or had my back snapped?” Jason asks, sneering as he takes off his helmet. It’s a low blow, one that makes his stomach clench, but he’s never backed down from a fight in his life.

“Exactly,” Bruce says, darting a flashlight beam over Jason’s eyes. He winces. “I thought you were getting less idiotic. You’re a part of this team now. You put yourself—and Gotham—in danger tonight.”

Jason gets his chestplate and shirt off with difficulty, and then throws them at the ground at Bruce’s feet. There are bruises all over his body, and his head is pounding. “Yeah, I know which one of those really matters to you.”

Bruce takes a deep breath, clearly reining himself in with difficulty. “You should know,” he growls. Jason winces. Bruce shakes his head, his face impassive. “Jason…”

“Are you going to stitch me up or just keep talking in fragments?” Jason growls. He doesn’t look down, but he can feel that his body is a mottled mess under the ink. Everything feels exposed in the Cave like this, the darkness around them leaving Jason and all his flaws under a spotlight.

Without another word, Bruce pulls up a stool beside him and examines his back. Even with his armor on, a few of the blows had been hard enough to split skin. Bruce layers on butterfly bandages where he can, and then picks up the needle and thread.

Jason grits his teeth and lets his head fall forward when the needle pierces the flesh by his ribs. He hates this part. At his safe house, he can at least usually drink half a bottle of whiskey while he’s stitching himself up. “You got any booze?” he asks.

Bruce hums, and doesn’t stop the steady stitching. “I would have thought you would be the most comfortable with needles out of everyone.”

“Is that a dig about the tattoos? You’ve seen them before,” Jason says. “And they were all voluntary. None were inked onto a fresh bruise. A bit different, B.”

“I didn’t realize you had so many.”

“What, are you going to yell at me some more? My body is a temple, right? A sacred weapon for, like, justice? I mean, that part isn’t wrong.” Jason gestures down, vicious. The thread pulls tight against his skin. “I’m a weapon and a corpse. Why not add some decorations? That’s what they do on graves, right?”

“ _What_ did you just say?” Bruce demands.

“This is my body, Bruce. It’s just skin. A few tattoos aren’t the worst thing that have happened to it.”

“You’re not a weapon. You’re not a…” Bruce doesn’t finish the sentence.

“I mean, I am,” Jason says.

“The dead don’t bleed,” Bruce says. “The dead don’t live. You’re not just a…body, Jason.”

“The dead don’t pick out their own tattoos,” Jason says quietly, defiant. He thought Bruce would agree with him, would confirm the dark thoughts that swirl like grave dirt in his mind. He doesn’t know what to do with a Bruce who is defending him. Jason knows he’s contradicting his own point, but he doesn’t know how else to keep a hold of the fight.

“I’m not mad about the tattoos,” Bruce says. “I was curious.”

“You’re a detective. I’m sure you know when I got each one.”

“But I don’t know what they mean.” His eyes linger on the empty nest.

Jason sighs, the fight leaving his muscles. His muscles don’t quite know what to do without it. “They have a lot of meanings, Bruce.”

Bruce goes quiet, finishing stitching the biggest wound and sticking a bandage into place over it. Jason’s head is still throbbing, but Bruce doesn’t seem concerned about a concussion. Either way, Jason wants to sleep. He usually goes home, but there’s a bed in the manor he uses sometimes. It will still be made up. Alfred makes sure he’s never without a place here.

“I had a tattoo,” Bruce says suddenly.

“You _what_? Where? What?”

“When I was younger. Seventeen. I got it removed when I decided to become Batman,” Bruce says. Jason wondered if Bruce could still remember the location amid the other scars on his body. Bruce has his own tapestry on his skin now, same as Jason.

“What was it of?”

“The WE logo,” Bruce says. “I wasn’t interested in the company. It’s just the only way I ever imagined the W in Wayne. When I saw it in standard type, it always seemed wrong. That W was more the house crest than what’s on the mantle. I thought the tattoo would commemorate my parents. You can imagine why I had it taken off.”

“Do you regret it? Getting it removed?”

“No,” Bruce says. “I had other ways to commemorate them.” He puts the used needle into the toxic waste bin and washes his hands. “I’d like to hear what your tattoos mean,” Bruce says finally, still at the sink. “If you want.”

Maybe Jason will blame the non-existent concussion later, but he tells Bruce about his first tattoo.

They talk late into the night, moving from the medical bay up to the kitchen, where they quietly make tea. Bruce can’t brew as well as Alfred, but Jason doesn’t have the palette to care. The brew is oversteeped. Bruce is as steady as he’s ever been, solid and strong.

Jason pours in too much sugar, crunches the sweet crystals between his teeth, and shows Bruce the boat, the rose, the map, the mask, the gravestone, the quotes, the nest.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem Tattoo by Nick Flynn.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://starknjarvis27.tumblr.com/)!


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